Recording payouts from a ticketing platform
How an organiser records ticket income an outside ticketing platform pays out after fees: gross sales, the fees, and the payout on the bank statement.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Events businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
When tickets are sold through an online ticketing platform, the platform takes the money from fans, keeps its booking fees and commission, and every so often pays the rest into your bank account. What lands in the bank is a round-ish number with a reference that names only the platform, and it bears no obvious relation to how many tickets you sold.
Recording only that payout as income is the most common shortcut, and it understates both your ticket sales and your costs. Your income looks smaller than it was, the platform's fees vanish from your expenses, and nobody can check whether the payout was right. This article shows how to record the full picture in Achekam.
Gross sales, fees and the net payout
Every payout is the end of a small calculation the platform has already done:
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross ticket sales | What fans paid for your tickets in the period |
| Less refunds | Tickets refunded to fans in the period |
| Less platform fees and commission | What the platform keeps, sometimes with VAT on it |
| Equals the payout | What reaches your bank |
Your books should show each line, not just the last one. Gross ticket sales are your income, the fees are your cost, and the payout is simply cash moving from the platform to your bank.
There is a question to settle first with your accountant: whether some booking fees are charged to fans by the platform for its own account, in which case they were never your income. Your platform agreement usually says. Decide once, and record every payout the same way.
The platform's report as your source
Never build the entry from the bank line. Download the platform's payout or settlement report for each payout and keep it with your records. It should show gross sales, refunds, fees and the net amount, ideally split by event.
If the platform's report does not add up to the payout, stop there and query it with the platform before recording anything. A payout that is short is far easier to recover in the week it arrives than in the next financial year.
Gross income and fees as a journal
Your chart of accounts can be extended, so add a clearing account named after the platform, for example "Ticket platform clearing". It holds the money the platform owes you between sale and payout.
For each payout report, post one manual journal:
- Debit the clearing account with the gross ticket sales less refunds.
- Credit ticket income, and output VAT if your accountant tells you VAT on the tickets is yours to account for.
- Debit platform fees expense with the fees, and input VAT on them only if you hold a valid tax invoice from the platform.
- Credit the clearing account with the fees.
After this journal, the clearing account holds exactly the net payout. A journal that does not balance is refused, one dated in a closed month is refused, and a posted journal is corrected only by reversing it, so build it from the report, not from memory.
If you hold ticket money as a liability until the event takes place, credit that liability account instead of ticket income, and release it in the event month as your accountant directs.
The fee invoice as a supplier bill
Some platforms do not deduct their fees from payouts. Instead they pay you the gross and send a separate monthly invoice for their fees, which you pay by transfer. In that case, leave the fee lines out of the journal and record the platform's invoice as a supplier bill, line by line with its VAT. A bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, and it can then be paid from the bank account you choose.
Use one method per platform. Recording a deducted fee in the journal and also as a bill counts it twice.
Matching the payout on the bank statement
Import the bank statement as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053; each import is checked so the opening balance plus movements equals the closing balance. The payout appears as a single line.
Bank lines are matched by suggestion, and a person accepts each match. A line not yet in the books becomes a suggested journal that a person approves, so the payout line can be booked from the bank to the platform clearing account. Once it is, the clearing account for that payout is back to nothing. A reconciliation completes only with no difference left or with every leftover line explained.
AccountingTools walks through the wider bank reconciliation process of comparing your cash records with the bank statement and adjusting the books; the platform clearing account is simply one more place where that comparison happens.
At month end, open the trial balance for the clearing account. A balance left there means a payout recorded but not yet received, or received but not yet recorded. Either way, it tells you which report to look at.
A monthly routine
- Download each payout report and check it adds up.
- Post the journal for gross sales and fees.
- Record any separate fee invoice as a supplier bill.
- Import the bank statement and book the payout to the clearing account.
- Check the clearing account before closing the month.
To see each event's result once ticket income and costs are complete, read seeing the profit on each event, and for ticket sales you take directly at your own till, see ticket deposits and the till.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
